Joy, Pain and Numb
by Neurotic Horcrux
Summary: They say that the dementors deprive you of all positive emotions, but the exhilaration of torture was her salvation.


(Joy)

It wasn't until the fateful night that Bella's head was no longer a chaotic mess with pieces of her life in loose order, voices screaming and trying to free themselves – that everything fell into place.

The poor creature shrieked, scratching and squirming helplessly as Bella tore its fingers, dislocated its limbs from its joints, as Bella's magic danced along its circulation madly. Never had Bella fathom her mother's love of music, but at the moment, she understood, the diminishing and at times forceful screams of the filthy gnome mixing with squeals and whimpers as its life vanished slowly, weaving together a melodious sound.

Bella's eyes gleamed with maddened pleasure, she belonged, she had mastered the arts of a proper pureblood lady. While she might not be as good on the pianoforte as the perfect Andy or even the apathetic Cissy, but she made melodies, divine and tragically beautiful even more so.

Laughter bubbled up out of Bella for the first time, innocent and without a taint of the blooming madness within the young girl's soul. Unable to contain herself, her magic flared and reached out for the neck of the gnome snuffling the remaining tiny flicker of life in the creature's body before her fingers close around its throat.

It was beautiful. Walking away, Bella sniffled with tears of joy, thinking of the beauty of the creature's screams fading along as its life was evading, until the crystalline crack that marked the end of its pathetic life.

She felt right, and liberated; the voices free from its chains and in their place, the poor garden gnome whose screams of plea would echo in the darkness of its prison forever.

It wasn't a happy memory, the dementors couldn't take it away.

Spitting a mouth of stale meat at the dementors cockily, a deranged grin spread across her gaunt cheeks, reminiscent of her wild, unhinged beauty.

(Pain)

He was innocent.

He was innocent.

Padfoot paced around anxiously in his cell, agitated by the presence of dementors, soothed only by the human voice chanting at the back of his mind. It was a timeless existence of pacing and chanting, a depressing tragedy to live even without the shadows of the dementors hovering.

He was innocent.

Il était toujours pur. (He was always pure)

Sirius came to a halt as he mind swayed upon an unwanted but inevitable memory. He wasn't innocent, he wasn't pure, he wasn't a Black. Regulus, he remembered how his younger brother turned Death Eater came to him, begging for his forgiveness and for his help. He was ready to believe him, ready to be the brother he had never been to Regulus –

Almost.

But the moment it dawned on him that Regulus could be sent to spy on the Order, he relent on his own offer to bring his brother to Dumbledore. He snarled in disgust, his wand drawn and pressing tightly against his brother's throat, his knuckles white and shaking with anger.

'I'm not your brother anymore! You chose the dark side; you did this to me and yourself!'

Regulus never released the grip on his sleeves even as he was held at wand point. 'Sirius you don't understand! The Dark Lord had made – '

Sirius disappeared before Regulus could finish the sentence. It was the last time Sirius had seen his brother before the news of his death came crashing down on him. He didn't dare think of how things would've been if he could use a Time Turner because he knew he would have chosen James over his brother, as he always did.

Padfoot shut his eyes in an emotion he could not grasp, a painful sensation tugging at his heart strings, his breathing hitched. In its place inside the filthy cell, a broken man with his face contorted in guilt, tortured by the pain of his past.  
Voldemort didn't kill Regulus. Sirius did; he was guilty, he was a kin-slayer – perhaps it was why everyone readily believed that he was the traitor, even Remus and maybe James too if he stayed to dwell in the realm of the living.

Never had Padfoot envisioned that the first feeling to came upon him was relief and a sense of familiarity when he recognized Wormtail on shoulders of a young boy. After years of near solitude, he lamented and longed for his pack, Prongs, Remus, and even Wormtail. For once he was glad the dementors left him all but misery; for the lone dog, watching whole world fell apart was a lesser evil than reliving in the sweet madness of past that no longer belonged to him.

Even in the shelter of his reverie, Padfoot didn't dare dream, dutiful of his role as a lone dog wrecked by life. In his unconsciousness though the human seethed in anger, vowing revenge on the turncoat who took all from him.

'He's at Hogwarts… he's at Hogwarts,' he mumbled between shallow and soundly breaths.

He would destroy the snivelling rat and deliver the justice he deserved, the thoughts of vengeance fuelled him with a spiral of energy. Perhaps sometime later in the light of day he would not survive to see, he would regret taking the life of the traitor who used to be his friend, but anger was happiness, vengeance was hope.

James died a hero, Remus disappeared, Pettigrew betrayed them all and Sirius, he lost everything.

(Numb)

'Father please don't send me to Azkaban! Please father I'm your son!'

'You're no son of mine! I have no son!'

Abertha Crouch trembled in the solitude of her prison, her hair raised at the spine-chilling cries of her son; everything was cold, everything was tainted with death. Walls of her cell closing in, the shadows stirred through the gap of the bars as her guard advanced on her vulnerable form shivering at a corner. Abertha could no longer see, but she could feel as memories sipped from her veins as the dementors feasted on her, draining her of the little hope she could muster in their presence.

Still, she remembered.

Barty, her son, he was suffering and she must protect him. And she clung on the thought, fighting back even as her mind was dissipating, slowly receding into emptiness.

For her son, for Barty. Abertha mused in the endlessness of her torture.

It was all she could remember.

She felt a pair of rough hands grabbed her, burning against the cold shell she wore. They jabbed at Abertha's face several times, something thin and sharp probed at her, but she was numb. Blunt as it was, the sensation was finally enough to illicit a small mumble of response from the woman polyjuiced as her son.

'Prisoner 931, c-can you hear me?' The man said coarsely, stuttering in the chilling frost the dementors left even in their absence.

The voice was small, overwhelmed by the cries ringing in her ear; Abertha could comprehend nothing of it, as if the human language was entirely foreign. But she remembered, and she tried to formulate words with the swollen bulk that was or used to be her tongue, her son, her son, her son was –

'A-alive…' Barty. Barty was his name Abertha meant to say, but she could no longer find her tongue, and she was… she was…

'Ma!' The child called, wide doe eyes of mahogany free from bitterness and hatred.

At last she fell, her arms flailing helplessly as she, collapse towards the eternal darkness; it was strangely comforting, as the screaming cease and silence dawn. Her voice remained, entrapped in the walls of Azkaban, telling the story of a mother's sacrifice.

Darkness fell.

* * *

Author's Note: This is the first time I've written anything in the perspective of canon characters, I hope they are not too OOC, especially Sirius since I find him quite hard to grasp. Also, please forgive my google translate French.  
Etymology: Abertha means 'scarifice' in Welsh


End file.
